Either way, it's going to hang out in that secondary for a few weeks to see if it fixes itself.

You are not giving it nearly enough time. This is an imperial, a big beer, 1.074 which takes much more time than a normal sized beer to become palatable. You are worried now for no real reason - its simply too early for a beer of this size. Put it away for two months and see how it develops.

Difficult to say whether what you are tasting are hot alcohols or phenols, or simply a green beer. 1056 doesn't usually produce a lot of phenols. Neither should be produced in excess at your fermentation temperatures, unless they fluctuated a lot.

The beer is still very young. Leave it in secondary for a few weeks and do another taste test. It was a mistake to take it off the primary yeast, since that yeast would have cleaned up the beer quite a bit given more time. Still, the hot flavors should mellow somewhat even in secondary. It is possible, however, that you are looking at an extended aging period of several months. For example, I did a vertical tasting of 15-month old homebrews, including some that I considered undrinkable last year, a few days ago. All but one of the "undrinkables" had developed into very pleasant beers!

If the beer still tastes thin after a few weeks in secondary, you can add some maltodextrin to boost the body. It's a non-fermentable sugar that adds very little sweetness.

Good input, I'll let this beast age out for a while and give it another shot. Now that I think about it I've had some beers that tasted pretty bad right out of the gate (my 1st brew, a Belgian Pale Ale) that hid in the back of the fridge for a couple months and ended up turning out great.

I brewed my 1st AG about 12 days back, it was suppose to be an Imperial Porter (appx 7-7.4%), but I forgot .5lbs of Chocolate Malt so it ended up as a Imperial Brown Ale!

After 12 days of fermentation and still the occasional bubble coming out of the airlock, I decided to just rack it over to 2ndary because I was getting suspicious of my yeasts. Racked it over, took a reading and a taste. Reading is 1.011-1.012, quite a bit lower than I really wanted with a Brown Ale and it literally tastes like I'm drinking fire. It's pretty bitter and it flat out stings my tongue. It has a harsh bum liquor type quality to it, like a $8 bottle of vodka.

Did I finish way to low for the style and it's just drier than it's suppose to be? Or is there something else going on here?

tried it again today after 3 weeks in the secondary, and wow, still can't tough this one yet. Looks like I'm going to have to let it hibernate. Should I just bottle it and let it bottle condition to age out or leave it in the secondary? What difference would I notice between the two?

I've been trying to taste this beer weekly, seeing how it's developing. Today was the 1st time I tried it and wasn't completely disgusted with it! The taste is actually mellowing, and while I wouldn't call it pleasant yet, some of the real flavors are starting to cut through the BOOZE taste. Still smells like a bottle of Skol Vodka, but seems like it's improving. Looks like I'm going to bottle it this week and let it condition for about a month and half before I check it again